


Millimeters

by chainofclovers



Series: Intervals in Green [2]
Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 08:25:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12766977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: She’s willing to give Frankie months and months—what’s another moment?





	Millimeters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Telanu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telanu/gifts), [ellydash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellydash/gifts), [kathryne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathryne/gifts).



> So, [Fridgegate happened](https://twitter.com/GraceandFrankie/status/931552525806915584), and caused me to find out that there needed to be another story between "Let Your Arms Become Propellers" and "Done with the Compass, Done with the Chart." Oops.
> 
> Set immediately following Season 3, Episode 1: "The Art Show."
> 
> Many thanks to Telanu, ellydash, and kathryne for being awesome and for conversation that turned my general Fridgegate flailing into something with words. (Special thanks to Telanu for Robert.)

Almost everyone in the gallery has cleared out, and Grace hovers in a corner near the door, pretending the New York Times app on her phone and the last few sips of her third and final art show martini are very compelling reasons to stand by herself for awhile. She’s stationed not quite as far away from Frankie and Jacob as she’d like, and she hopes it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to listen to whatever they’re saying. A very short time ago, Grace and Frankie had been walking through the gallery together, and Grace had almost convinced herself they were headed for the door, for home, that they were taking some discernable path that—out of everyone on earth—did the work of teaming them up. But then Frankie had unlinked her arm from Grace’s and bounded off to find her boyfriend. _Just give me one sec_ , she’d said. Frankie’s energy had been all but gone until she sold the yellow painting, but now she’s frenetic again.

 _Sure, take a second_ , Grace thinks, annoyed with herself, annoyed with Frankie. She’s willing to give Frankie months and months—what’s another moment? But now it’s been a few actual, measurable minutes, and she’s bracing herself for news of a Frankie-and-Jacob after party. What will that look like? Like Grace taking an Lyft home, alone, because she promised Frankie she’d boycott Uber, and Frankie and Jacob heading off in a different direction to get high together. For some reason, she’s picturing a rooftop view, a glittering cityscape beneath them, twin smoke rings framing the sites of all their favorite memories, but that’s absurd. She’d like very much to smoke on a glamorous rooftop, but Frankie and Jacob tend to just hang out at Jacob’s farm, mostly, and that’s where they’ll end up tonight. Better than the three of them going home together, Frankie grabbing Jacob for a detour to the studio as fast as possible, their real or imagined laughter floating up to the house no matter how firmly Grace shuts the windows. She will not, will not, will absolutely not imagine what’ll happen after the pot runs out and the laughter dies down. 

But then, mercifully, a very familiar arm wraps around hers, bringing her back from what was about to be a completely inappropriate thought spiral. “I told him I was too tired for anything but falling asleep in my own bed,” Frankie says, her voice quieter than usual—because there’s Jacob walking past, headed for the door. Frankie reaches across her own body to squeeze Grace’s elbow. 

_Don’t smile like an idiot_ , Grace tells herself as they walk arm in arm to the parking lot. _You aren’t her fucking wife._ But she’s smiling, foolish and buoyant despite her heels and her drinks and the weight of her thoughts, when they practically bump into Robert outside the front doors of the venue. 

“Ride home?” Robert asks, holding up his keys, waving the keyring so they jingle. He’s been waiting for them. “I can’t keep track of who’s angry at whom, but you ladies deserve a chauffeur.” It’s the nicest possible way to point out that Grace is tipsy and Frankie is night blind.

“Thank you,” Grace says, “but we were going to Lyft.”

Frankie shrugs. “I think I’m one of the people mad at you,” she says. “And don’t get me started on your stupid husband. But I’m too happy to care. Where’s your car?”

\--

“Come up for a while,” Frankie suggests as Robert parks, and Grace rolls her eyes from the backseat. Sometime soon she’s going to have to remind Frankie that just because there’s someone there, they don’t have to be invited in. It’s strange to ride in the back of this car, but less strange, she supposes, than sitting up front like she used to. She might not be married to Frankie, but she sure as hell isn’t married to Robert.

Robert who must feel like avoiding Sol, because Grace swears she hears him say “Just for a little while.”

When they get inside the house, Grace tosses her purse near the door and sits down on one of the big cream-colored armchairs right away, hoping to signal to Robert that she’s home now, that she’s off-duty for the night regardless of how nice it was that he gave them a ride home. He can offer to make her a drink or he can leave, and those are pretty much the only acceptable options where he’s concerned. If Frankie wants to entertain him, fine, but there’s going to be a time limit involved. 

There’s no hope of the latter possibility, because Frankie turns her attention to Grace. There’s a chair next to Grace’s, but it’s occupied by Frankie’s laptop and an unopened box of Nag Champa incense and ( _why, why, why?_ ) the vibrator research binder, and instead of moving those items, Frankie smiles impishly and sits on Grace. “Oof!” Grace says involuntarily, because Frankie lands pretty hard. 

“This seat taken?” Frankie asks, and it’s such a dumb thing to say, so poorly-timed, that they both start laughing. Frankie hoists her legs over the side of the armchair, the rest of her wobbling backwards, and it’s instinct, just instinct, that makes Grace throw her arms around her and lace her fingers together. To stabilize her, to keep her from falling while she laughs. 

The sound of their laughter pulls Robert from the foyer, where he was standing invited but not invited, into the room with them. He chuckles when he sees the chair situation. “You two,” he says, which could mean literally anything, but then he pulls his phone from his back pocket, and Grace doesn’t have time to get her face under control before he snaps a few photos. 

“Robert!” she says, indignant but still laughing, because she can’t stop, and neither can Frankie. _Offer him something_ , chirps her hostess brain, but her hostess brain can get wrecked because the rest of her is exactly where she wants to be.

“Hey, I should probably go,” Robert says, sticking his phone back in his pocket. He walks to the chair, grabs the back for support, and leans to kiss the top of each of their heads. Their laughter dies beneath him, and the pressure of his lips puts a lump in Grace’s throat. He’s been kind to her tonight, in more ways than one. She looks up at him just as he’s backing away. They make eye contact, and there’s a question in his eyes; she’s studied her own face enough to know how to avoid answering it. He asks a different question when he’s almost out of the room. “Can you ever forgive us.” It’s too big for a question mark. 

No one walks him to the door. How can they? They can’t move. When he’s gone, Frankie settles in a little deeper, slumps against Grace, and Grace tightens her grip in response. She has to quell the urge to rock her back and forth, to kiss whatever she can reach—in this case, her shoulder. Grace Hanson, failed misanthrope, so in love she’s in danger of losing control and kissing a shoulder. 

“You said you were proud of me.”

Grace smiles against her shoulder. Not a kiss. “I am proud of you.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” More shifting. There’s so much they can’t do, and the whole off-limits world turns every millimeter of adjustment into something meaningful. “You know who else is?”

Frankie nods. “Babe.” 

“Right. She’s almost as proud of you as I am.”

“I miss her,” says Frankie. “She had all the answers.” 

“No one does,” says Grace, but she understands what Frankie means. Babe had guts. She knew her way around a decision. She’d look at this chair and say “Congratulations, now make out with each other for the rest of your lives” or “Absolutely not. Get out. Separate rooms, now.” 

“Grace, you know Babe would be proud of you, too. Is proud of you. Whatever.” 

Grace frowns. “Why?”

“Think about it, you beautiful intellectual doofus," Frankie says, making a subtle return to their recent argument about which one of them is Leslie and which one is Ann, an argument they keep having even though every woman with a best friend is obviously, undeniably both. She laughs, and it’s a sound in the air and a vibration against Grace’s arms. “And on a note very related to one of the many reasons Babe would be proud of you, don’t you wish our vibrator already existed?”

“Yes,” Grace admits. 

Another millimeter from Frankie, another millimeter from Grace.

“I don’t want to get up,” Frankie says.

“Then don’t.”

\--

You have to get up eventually, and in the morning, Grace wakes up in her bed. She wakes up because her phone’s making a sound that isn’t her alarm, which means it’s early. A feeling of concern flashes past her slight headache, makes her sit up and reach for the phone. Before she unlocks the screen, she settles back against her pillow, reminding herself that everything’s probably fine, that the message might be from Frankie. Some mornings, she texts Grace from the beach, invites her to come down and take a walk. 

The text is from Robert. No words, just a picture:

[](https://imgur.com/rRn5nED)

Grace’s stomach sinks. 

First, this is a photo of a person in love with the universe. If Grace didn’t know who’d taken the photo, she’d say this person might be in love with the photographer, with the room, with the night, with herself, with everyone. It’s a photo of Frankie, in love with the universe.

Second, this is a photo of a person who kind of hates the universe but is in love with a single sliver of it, so focused she’s biting her lip—not to fight her own joy, but to eat it. And for better or worse, that beloved sliver is sitting on the universe-hating person’s lap. It’s a photo of Grace, in love with Frankie. 

She understands why Robert didn’t include any words in his text. What would he have said? “You were faking it too, you lesbian.” A perfectly redundant sentence, now that this photo exists.

Grace presses her thumb to the photo, and her phone gives her the option to save it forever. Done. The photo is now in this text message, and in her hands, and in her photo stream, and in “the cloud.” Saved forever, this moment, she’s saved forever. And totally fucking hopeless, too. 

Even now, Grace’s brain marches forward, training her thoughts—with a singularity possible in the early morning—to her favorite part of the world: _Go find Frankie, go make her breakfast, time to eat breakfast with Frankie, make a plan for the day, where’s Frankie, find Frankie, get up and have your day with Frankie._


End file.
